Bidfident for street cabinet installers
Estimating software for street cabinets
When the job is street cabinets, Bidfident prices each one by number: the base set level, the cabinet set and secured, earthing, duct stubs and fibre terminations. The lorry loader crane is charged only for the hours it lifts, not the whole day of crew time. The power supply is an electrical subcontract package, and supervision and traffic management run by the week.
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Sound familiar?
A cabinet price buried in the labour
Cabinets cost far more than the time to set them, and a spreadsheet row mixes the two. In Bidfident each line has its own material price, hours per unit and plant, totalled separately as you go.
The crane lorry charged for the whole day
The lorry loader lifts the base and the cabinet, then waits while the crew earths and terminates. In Bidfident the crane gets its own hours per cabinet, apart from the crew's.
Electrical quotes that don't line up
The power supply comes back from two electricians in two formats. In Bidfident the quotes sit side by side, the lowest is flagged, and you carry the one you pick.
How Bidfident fits your work
Bases, cabinets and terminations by number
Each line takes a count, hours per unit, a material price and plant by the hour, with labour, materials and plant totalled as you go.
A lorry loader for the hours it lifts
Give the crane its own hours per base and per cabinet. It's charged for those hours, not the crew's.
The power supply as a subcontract package
Enter each electrician's quote, see the lowest flagged, and carry it or the one you pick. Carry an allowance until the quotes come in.
Technicians and labourers at their own rates
Bases and duct stubs on the labourer, cabinets, earthing and terminations on the fibre technician. Each line takes its trade's rate.
Each site with its own subtotal
Tag lines by cabinet site and group the sheet to see what each location comes to.
Cabinet assemblies that fill a line
Save a cabinet set and secured as an assembly with its hours and price, and pick it to fill a whole line at once.
Worked example: installing six fibre street cabinets
A made-up job, priced in Bidfident: 26 lines of your own work, 3 subcontract packages and 5 preliminaries items over a 4-week programme. The 5 lines this page talks about are listed one by one, and the rest are added up in one row. It's the same job you can open as an example project in Bidfident, so every figure below matches it.
To open this job in Bidfident: sign in and set up your company in the UK, then on the Projects screen, under Example project, pick "Telecoms and fibre" and "Street cabinets" and press Add example project.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Precast cabinet bases, set level, 2 nr
| £1,974.00 |
Fibre street cabinets, set and secured, 2 nr
| £12,312.00 |
Earthing, rods and bonding, 2 nr
| £602.00 |
Duct stubs into cabinets, 12 nr
| £856.80 |
Fibre terminations and labelling, 288 nr
| £1,209.60 |
21 more lines of your own work
| £49,245.04 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Electrical, power supply to cabinets
| £8,800.00 |
Reinstatement of verges at cabinet sites
| £2,640.00 |
DNO connection charges, allowance
| £3,300.00 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Site supervisor
| £3,600.00 |
Traffic management
| £3,800.00 |
Crew van and tool trailer
| £992.00 |
Street works permits and planning notices
| £990.00 |
Mobilise gang and plant
| £825.00 |
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
Own work
| £66,199.44 |
| Excluded lines, not counted | £3,908.00 |
| Subcontractors | £14,740.00 |
Preliminaries
| £10,207.00 |
Direct cost
| £91,146.44 |
Contingency
| £2,734.39 |
Overheads and profit
| £9,388.08 |
| Subtotal before the bond | £103,268.91 |
Bond
| £1,032.69 |
Insurance
| £516.34 |
Tender total
| £104,817.94 |
VAT, for reference
| £20,963.59 |
See it in Bidfident
Coming soon Ask your estimate anything. Claude first, ChatGPT to follow. See how it will work
Questions
Can I price each cabinet as one line?
Yes, where one trade does the work. Save the cabinet, set and secured, as an assembly with its hours and price, and pick it to fill the line. An assembly fills one line with one trade, so the base and the cabinet stay on their own lines.
Can the crane run fewer hours than the crew?
Yes. Give the line's plant its own hours per unit. Leave it blank and it runs for the crew's hours.
Can I see the cost for each site?
Yes. Tag each line with a location or area and group the sheet by it, with a subtotal for each.
Can I keep an extra cabinet as an option?
Yes. Switch the line off. It stays on the sheet struck through, and its cost before markups is shown beside the totals, not counted in the tender.
Can bases, cabinets and terminations go to different cost codes?
Yes. Every line takes its own cost code. Start with the NRM2 work sections, or paste a list of your own, such as CESMM, from Excel or QuickBooks, and check the preview before anything changes.
Can I send the client a price for each cabinet site?
Not from Bidfident yet. Group the sheet by site to see what each one costs, then copy the cost report as CSV. Client view hides hours and rates on screen, but its unit prices are your cost, before markups.
Does Bidfident work with Claude or ChatGPT?
Not yet, but it's coming. You'll be able to connect Bidfident to your own Claude or ChatGPT account and ask about your estimates in plain English. The answers will come from Bidfident's own figures, so they match the estimate. It will use the account you already have: Claude first, ChatGPT to follow.
Price your next cabinet tender in Bidfident
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